I rewatched "Felina" again tonight and I noticed something cool: When Lydia tells Walt he has two minutes to talk, he gets exactly that. Same thing happens when Skyler tells Walt he has five minutes (sans the Holly visit).

Initially, Walt's murder of Jesse was the logical conclusion of his choices. But the writers realized they had inadvertently created a yin to Walt's yang, making the series more than an antihero fantasy. In the long run they were quite right, but it did distort the structure of the series for quite some time. A plane blowing up overhead just wasn't the same payoff as Walt killing Jesse would have been.

Later, the series was distorted by the magical powers of Super Bad Ass Gus Fring. Obviously some people loved Gus, a man so bad you could root for Walter White instead, but he really was not good for the series. This is a good point to regret again Breaking Bad's artlessness in dealing with Latino characters. Fring's success in poisoning everybody at a party exactly at the same moment, so quickly they didn't have time to shoot him, was really a moment that deserved a hearty guffaw.

If anything can be skipped, it is the final episode. Granite State showed Walt getting away with it and Granite State showed Walt did it all for nothing important in the end. I suppose if you dislike downers this is unsatisfying, but unlike Felina it was plausible and thematically true.

Skimming around I see that someone called Emily Nussbaum also had the thought that the finale should have been a deathbed delirium.

Eh, maybe Walt shouldn't have succeeded at everything in the last episode but it definitely shouldn't have been deathbed-delirium. Copouts like that are a stupid way to end a show.

And if Walt lost, it should have been a likable villain who won, not the Nazis. For example, if Mike hadn't been killed earlier he could have ended up with Walt's money and it would have been satisfying. Or it could have worked as a Chinatown style ending where the well intentioned plot fails because that's just not the way things work.

I read something that made the finale not out to be a dream or a fantasy, but essentially Gilligan giving fans two endings: you can have your downer ending with "Granite State," and your fantasy pro-Walt ending with "Felina." Pick whichever one you prefer as your personal "true" ending. I can go for that.

Hell, the way "Granite State" closes, playing the theme song and showing a glass literally half empty/half full pretty much leaves it up to the viewer to decide what becomes of Walt after that. It's a perfect ending all by itself.

Let's say I know nothing of Breaking Bad. What would be the quintessential episodes to watch that cover the most of the meta arc?

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All of them. This series is like a Lego set, all the interlocking pieces fit together with precision. There are no fluff storylines or useless characters.

Sorry to disagree, Harvey, but "Fly" establishes

that Walt is, indeed, feeling deep remorse for letting Jane die.

And that's pretty important, considering what was said from Walt to Jesse in Ozymandias.

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Oh, I know. That's why I said it had an important moment in it, but other than that, I think I might consider it expendable. If I had to let go of an episode.

The Lego set comparison is pretty apt, really. This isn't like Babylon 5 -- there aren't any early, shitty episodes that hardcore fans insist you have to watch because one scene will set up a plot device that will be important two seasons later. Breaking Bad is a tightly written, serial narrative which builds the story and develops the characters every week. It's also consistently excellent throughout its run. Sure, you could take out a few episodes and it would still make sense, but why would you want to?

A plane blowing up overhead just wasn't the same payoff as Walt killing Jesse would have been.

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The end of season two was written (and shot) at the beginning of season two. Jesse's death -- intended for a season one episode that never filmed because of the writer's strike -- wasn't planned to be Walt's doing. He was going to be killed in a drug deal gone wrong.

^^ Plus, after spending time in Vermont, he NEEDED a green chile fix... Who wouldn't?

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That was the most unrealistic part of the show, who the hell comes back to New Mexico and his first thought is "Denny's?" That wasn't even the good Denny's Frontiers is two blocks down and a million times better

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Right.. New Hampshire..

I would imagine that the Frontier is SO busy all the time, that filming there would have been problematic... That said the Grove is always pretty busy too... Maybe they just didn't want to deal with the hassle...

Love me the Grove.. It's very hipsterdouche, but the food is amazing.. Especially the english muffins... SO good!

I guess I'm a bad guy for saying this, but I was pretty much always Team Walt. Aaron is a nice man to be sure, but his stint in Last House on the Left showed he could play "bug eyed and unstable" quite well. Gus was even more likeable in some respects. Walt was in between the two--an everyman. Like all humans, he could stoop--or rise to any occasion.

If anything, the real villain of the last season was Ahab Hank--and Marie. I almost wish Walt had been captured, and left us with an indictment of our prison industrial complex--but that would have been too "After School Special' and would have been unsatisfying. Still, the subject deserves to be brought up.

We never really saw Walt flatline. We assume that, but he fell out as the cruisers were getting to him. I actually loved his sense of pride at looking at the equipment--and all my dislike of Jesse just dissappeared seeing him free.

If anything, neither thi or Dexter ended as dark as it could have been--and maybe there is room for a brief movie sequel, not just the prequel: Better Call Saul .

Were I to helm such a flick, I would show Walt being scooped up on a hospital run, with jesse and Brock being a B story with both ending up dead.

We see a courtroom and the back of someones head that looks familiar. But it isn't Walt. We see him die on the table. Instead it is a shaven Ed as played by The Black Hole's Robert Forster. As it turns out, they was a side story where the CIA was selling drugs, and Ed's old closet was rumored to have a Mannlicher-Carcano in it even. He delivers the line condeming our prison populace, before being led away in irons. But, you see, he was already convicted of crimes before hand.

He has allowed himself to take part in this moot court, where we at last see the title of the sequel:

Making Good: The Trial of Walter White and the End of the American Drug War.

Walt may have had the 'everyman' claim at some point in the series, very early on, when he was plausibly just trying to leave his family with a bit of cash. Maybe even as late as season four you could make the argument.

But the moment he went back into the business at the start of season five, no. He is not an everyman, he is a power hungry sociopathic narcissist. Hank's only mistake was trying to take him down alone instead of going straight to his colleagues.

Eh, maybe Walt shouldn't have succeeded at everything in the last episode but it definitely shouldn't have been deathbed-delirium. Copouts like that are a stupid way to end a show.

And if Walt lost, it should have been a likable villain who won, not the Nazis. For example, if Mike hadn't been killed earlier he could have ended up with Walt's money and it would have been satisfying. Or it could have worked as a Chinatown style ending where the well intentioned plot fails because that's just not the way things work.

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Personally, I really think the only satisfying end wherein Walt loses or is defeated by someone would have been if Jesse had been the one to do it somehow, Jesse who'd been on the reverse trajectory to Walt's for quite some time. Jesse was his foil. The dumb, doped up punk, who couldn't even pass his chemistry class, not only getting the better of him, but also becoming an equally capable meth cook

Even though I enjoyed the end of the show, I still consider that dream ending I was hoping for a viable option. Jesse is the only one who could have defeated Walt in a dramatic context, & had it be satisfying, & I really thought we might get it when he hung up the pay phone on him near the end

If anything, the real villain of the last season was Ahab Hank--and Marie. I almost wish Walt had been captured, and left us with an indictment of our prison industrial complex--but that would have been too "After School Special' and would have been unsatisfying. Still, the subject deserves to be brought up.

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I think it's hard for a lot of people to see someone trying to stop a murdering criminal as a villain. And I don't really see how having said murderer end up in jail -- where almost everyone thinks murderers belong -- would serve as an indictment of the prison-industrial complex.

No one sees himself as a villain. The folks behind the Salem Witch Trials thought they were doing good, after all. Walt has nothing on them. He was just following the advice from Adrian Grenier (Entourage) who promoted his new documentry How To Make Money Selling Drugs on Bill Maher's Real Time.

Low wages, the poverty that creates--all this should be the focus.

Hank is just a modern day Carrie Nation, with the exasperating straight-edger truth.com folks to boot.